New platforms, multiple ways to distribute information to members, the brave new world of user-generated content—exciting but a lot of work with little or no proven payoff. No one strategy is the right strategy because in today’s multi-media world, there’s no one way to reach members. The secret is findability—members’ ability to find your content [...]

If you’re a B2B association and you’re trying social media marketing (as opposed to social networking where members network with members) and you’re not getting results and your skeptical boss is ready to say “I told you so,” well, you’re not alone. A new report from White Horse says that almost half (46%) of B2B [...]

I spoke at the sold-out ASAE Membership & Marketing Conference last week and these are the smartest things I heard. “The rise of the curator class has created a new generation of social and creative directors and editors.” –John Winsor, founder of Victors & Spoils,the world’s first ad agency built on crowdsourcing. Offer a chance [...]

Halfway through my roster of speeches and two themes are emerging: 1. We still don’t have any money but we’re not contemplating a leap off the roof anymore. 2. We have a long list of what we’d like to do next but everything is vying to be first. The economic recovery is slowly making its [...]

You’ve heard about the lost/possibly stolen/possibly purchased prototype iPhone, right? When the story first broke, an Apple developer had supposedly left the prototype in a bar and someone had found it, passed it along to Gizmodo where it had been dismantled, analyzed and all of its bells and whistles leaked to the blog-reading public.  But [...]

I’ve been working in the “free” media for a long time. I edited the alternative paper in Atlanta, Creative Loafing, one of those that turn up in boxes on street corners all over town and serve as either a great reference for what to do on Saturday night or to keep the rain off your [...]

My company hires 60% of our interns. We’re a small company so we don’t have a lot of open slots nor a lot of interns but that still seems a really good indicator of the caliber of people coming out of school. More and more companies, 36% according to one study, look for great interns [...]

The new Edelman Trust Barometer shows that “informed publics” have decided to try trusting institutions again, although nearly 70% feel that companies will revert to “business as usual” once the recession ends. Following a year when trust in almost everything declined, this is a remarkable rebound based on increasing transparency and the willingness to listen. [...]

A random sampling of things I’ve seen that might be of interest. The Open Niche for Associations Reed Business Information put its US-based magazines up for sale. Nielsen Business is selling off its media and entertainment brands.  That’s two huge trade publishers getting out of the business. For B2B associations, industry trade magazines are their [...]

I’ve read Paul Conley’s comments to Folio’s Forecast for 2010 about 10 times. He says that this will be the “year of the tier.” Data is already showing that the winners and losers in the new, as-yet-still-undefined media future will be the ones at the top and the ones at the bottom. Huge, mass media [...]